In a printing apparatus of this type, type elements are normally arranged on the periphery of a print wheel or belt. The print wheel or belt is replaceable so that an optimum font combination may be employed depending on the language, type style, and printing pitch. By these means, characters in various languages, type styles and different printing pitches are readily printable without changing major components of the printing apparatus. Examples of such composite printers are disclosed in U.S. patent applications Ser. No. 671,617 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,595,303, and 765,213 filed Nov. 15, 1984 and Aug. 13, 1985.
In a printing apparatus of this type, however, the number of usable characters which can be provided on one print wheel or belt is extremely limited because of the size of the printing apparatus. The characters provided on the print wheel or the belt must be supplemented by additional character patterns that are read from a pattern memory and reproduced by a pattern printer, e.g., a wire printer.
Herteofore, however, there has been provided only one kind of printing pattern for each character. The joint use of both types of printing assemblies has failed to provide a printing apparatus that produces printing in a wide variety of fonts because the number of languages and type styles obtained from character printing based on printing patterns has been extremely limited.